In certain conventional weapon systems, two types of safety include safe separation from a launcher and reliable weapon functioning to protect warfighters near a target, independent of whether the target is coming at a launcher or a weapon is incoming to a target. Safe separation and reliable functioning are facilitated by testing circuitry of such weapon systems prior to use in the field. In the past, government safety allowed arm control circuits of an arm and fire device (AFD) to be tested with launcher power before activating any batteries in a weapon.
Now, government safety may delay when electrical power can be applied to AFD circuits that control arming the device. This requirement limits or inhibits the ways in which the circuitry of the AFD circuits can be tested prior to use in the field (e.g. factory test, pre-deployment test. Pre-deployment includes all time before launch). New AFDs are not allowed to perform electrical tests for weapon integration, all-up-round test, pre-deployment test, service life test, or combinations of these tests. Thus, in some ways, these tougher AFD requirements can reduce a warfighter's safety by preventing a system from destroying or degrading a target due to a failure to detect a missing connection, broken connection, or a broken circuit during a weapon factory test, test before weapon deployment test, or during surveillance test.